07.29.09

IT has been a few days since we last caught up with SCO [1, 2] and fascinating things are happening now that the court proceeds. The most significant revelation was probably this new one from Groklaw. Watch the way SCO distances itself from its own major folks, the seniors. SCO pretends Hans Bayer is some sort of estranged person.

Groklaw’s reporters who attended the SCO bankruptcy hearing on the 27th reported that SCO portrayed Hans Bayer as not an officer of the company and not authorized to speak for SCO about the unXis deal. As a result, some emails by Bayer about the proposed sale to unXis were stricken from the record. I’ll show you in a minute why SCO was so eager to have the emails stricken. They are very damaging. CEO Darl McBride said he’d even reprimanded Bayer for some emails he was not authorized to send. At one point, Cravath attorney David Marriott, representing IBM, pulled out his Blackberry and showed McBride the SCO website, listing Bayer as VP. But SCO’s portrayal was that the web site was mistaken. When Steve Norris later testified, however, when he was asked who was the lead negotiator for SCO in the unXis deal, he said it was Hans Bayer. Norris had not been in the courtroom during McBride’s testimony.

The court proceedings concerning the bankruptcy of the SCO Group were finalised on Monday with a 12-hour marathon hearing. The judge’s ruling is expected in about a week. A surprising aspect of the hearing was a controversy that developed around the role of SCO’s Vice President Hans Bayer, the former CEO of SCO Germany. This was sparked off by the question of which of SCO’s business divisions possess any economic value that could be salvaged via ordered bankruptcy proceedings.

Update 2: I got a quick email that Darl McBride has taken the stand and is painting a rosy picture of SCO’s business hopes:

Darl McBride sworn in. Mr. Spector on direct. Extoling SCO’s bright prospects. Objection over scope of testemony–overruled. More objections–sustained. Mr. McBride may not speculate about the impacts of the results of the appeal. Mr. Mcbride goes over the history of the attempts to reach a deal–York, SNCP, Merchants Bridge, others.

Possible connections between some of these deals and Microsoft were shown before. █

What Else is New

The ‘media coup’ of corporate giants (that claim to be 'friends') means that history of GNU/Linux is being distorted and lied about; it also explains prevalent lies such as "Microsoft loves Linux" and denial of GNU/Free software

A calm interpretation of the latest wave of lobbying from litigation professionals, i.e. people who profit when there are lots of patent disputes and even expensive lawsuits which may be totally frivolous (for example, based upon fake patents that aren't EPC-compliant)

Normalisation of invalid patents (granted by the EPO in defiance of the EPC) is a serious problem, but patent law firms continue to exploit that while this whole 'patent bubble' lasts (apparently the number of applications will continue to decrease because the perceived value of European Patents diminishes)

The ways Microsoft depresses GNU/Linux advocacy and discourages enthusiasm for Software Freedom is not hard to see; it's worth considering and understanding some of these tactics (mostly assimilation-centric and love-themed), which can otherwise go unnoticed

The openwashing services of the so-called 'Linux' Foundation are working; companies that are inherently against Open Source are being called "Open" and some people are willing to swallow this bait (so-called 'compromise' which is actually surrender to proprietary software regimes)

What good is the EPC when the EPO feels free to ignore it and nobody holds the EPO accountable for it? At the moment we're living in a post-EPC Europe where the only thing that counts is co-called 'products' (i.e. quantity, not quality).

The marketing agency that controls the name "Linux" is hardly showing any interest in technology or in journalism; it's just buying media coverage for sponsors and this is what it boils down to for the most part (at great expense)

Microsoft reminds us how E.E.E. tactics work; Microsoft is just hijacking its competition and misleading the market (claiming the competition to be its own, having "extended" it Microsoft's way with proprietary code)

As the Linux Foundation transitions into the Public Relations (PR) industry/domain we should accept if not expect Linux.com to become an extension of PR business models; the old Linux.com is long gone (all staff fired)

The Linux Foundation works for whoever pays the Linux Foundation and sadly that usually means companies that aren’t dedicated to Linux, to Software Freedom or even to simple truths and to the Rule of Law

The discussion about “Linux” is being saturated if not replaced by misinformation and marketing of Linux’s competition — owing largely to googlebombing tactics that the Linux Foundation participates in rather than tackle